Glasses, such as high content silica glass and boro-silicate glass, have many properties of interest for chemical, pharmaceutical, optical and biological applications including chemical inertness, high temperature durability, optical transparency, controllable surface wetting properties and the like. Positive topographical features (e.g., pillars, columns, grids and the like) and negative topographical features (e.g., cavities, voids, grooves and the like) may be introduced into a glass substrate to make the glass substrate suitable for a particular application. Conventional machining and molding techniques are commonly used to introduce features on the order of 1 mm and greater into a glass substrate while photolithography and chemical etching are commonly used to introduce features smaller than 1 mm (i.e., microstructures) into a glass substrate. These glass microstructures have potential for application in, for example, micro-fluidics, hyperhydrophobic surfaces, micro-cavity arrays, micro-lens systems, life science cells, micro-reactor mixing designs.
However, the photolithography and chemical etching techniques used for producing microstructures in glass are difficult to apply compared to the more conventional machining and molding techniques. Further, processes such as photolithography may be expensive and time consuming and therefore are not economically viable for small manufacturing runs and rapid prototyping.
Accordingly, alternative methods for producing microstructures in glass that are suitable for small manufacturing runs and prototyping.